Tuesday, 4 August 2015

A Reply to Thomas Leonard's Future of the World 1.

"Some attempts will doubtlessly be made within the next few years
to patch up our heavily flawed Capitalism system. However, an increasing number
of people talk about revolution, either social or violent, maybe with some sort
of grass roots or direct democracy in mind, Some of these people think that the
precise structure and format or our new social, financial, and political system
will evolve from group discussions during and after the forthcoming revolution.
However, unless we have a good a priori idea of what our new society is going
to be like, I foresee a post-revolutionary world where we decline into
infighting, violence, scant social structure, and a return to a Mad Max-style
prehistoric age with pockets of civilisation surviving in relatively few
places.

I have been trying to think about future world orders in
extremely simple ways, Suppose that it was possible to compartmentize our
population of seven billion people into 1400 peacefully interacting
confederations each with a population of 5 million people. Each confederation
could then be divided into 10 peacefully interacting administrative regions,
each with half-a million people, and each administrative region into 50
interacting and self-nurturing communes, each with 1000 people, Can we then
fill in all the details, and construct a social, economic, and political
system, with no monetary system and some sort of grass roots or direct
democracy which maintains the food supply, medical care and quality housing,
and quality education for everybody, and the freedom to express novel and
creative ideas?

I believe that we need to perform a feasibility study to see
if there is some sort of potential world system which would be likely to
accommodate all these requirements. If a social revolution were then to occur, there would doubtlessly be lots of
discussion as to what we should do next, However, at least we would know that
these discussions would not be likely to be fruitless,"

Maybe the replacement of our world-wide culture of group and
institutional bullying and aggression by a non-corrupt culture, which is
adamant about nurturing others, developing their talents, and accommodating
their weaknesses, would itself lead to a natural evolution to a new world order
without the need for possibly violent revolution, If necessary, the confirmed
psychopaths and paedophiles could be confined to their own rocky islands, and
left to screw each other, Such a change in mind-set would however require a
re-education of all members of our Society from pre-school to the grave. All of
our institutions would need to reformulated, and our oligarths would need to be
persuaded to agree. In such a Society, nationalistic, ethnic, and religious
rivalries would be replaced by a fusion of all that is best in our historical
cultures. "

Anarchism stands for total uncompromising opposition to all forms of hierarchy, domination, oppression and exploitation which includes capitalism, the state, Patriarchy and white supremacy among others.

Mr Leonard's remarks in blue.

" However, an increasing number of people talk about
revolution, either social or violent,"

I reject the idea of an opposition between social and
violent. I believe a revolution is unlikely to be non-violent but I favour a
social revolution i.e. a revolution which changes the very institutions, the
very structures of society instead of a political revolution which replaces one
set of rulers with another e.g. The Russian Revolution.

I believe a good starting point is the example of the
Spanish Revolution of 1936 though I do not believe we could or indeed should
have a revolution like that again. We must go beyond it and be even bolder and
much more inclusive and more widespread. We must tackle white supremacy,
patriarchy, heteronormativity etc as well

" Some of these people think that the precise structure
and format or our new social, financial, and political system will evolve from
group discussions during and after the forthcoming revolution."

That suggests something purely idealist. That there will be
conversations and then a new society will emerge.But A new society will emerge from the ways we
act in the present and the struggles we fight in the present- the way these
struggles are fought and what we are able to accomplish.

Anarchists are against sketching precisely how a future
society would look because we are opposed to utopian blueprints which have
often been imposed by authoritarian regimes. We do not believe it is our right
to decide for future people and it would be wildly utopian to talk in specific
terms in an abstract way which is removed from the concrete material
circumstances struggles would be facing. We also do not believe we can predict
the future so we don't think we can know ahead of time how far the struggle
will be able to go or alternatively, what limits it may face.

A future society can only emerge from struggle, from action
as well as discussion but the specifics of that future society will be
determined by the nature of those struggles on the way to that future society.
Means determine ends.

"I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is
the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal"-
Rudolf Rocker.

"To neglect all the problems of reconstruction or to
pre-arrange complete and uniform plans are both errors, excesses which, by
different routes, would led to our defeat as anarchists and to the victory of
new or old authoritarian regime. The truth lies in the middle." - Errico
Malatesta.

" However, unless we have a good a priori idea of what
our new society is going to be like, I foresee a post-revolutionary world where
we decline into infighting, violence, scant social structure, and a return to a
Mad Max-style prehistoric age with pockets of civilisation surviving in
relatively few places."

This is a distinctly Hobbesian view of the world. History
shows in periods of social upheaval especially recent blackouts ,famines or
economic collapse(e.g. Greece) rather than a war of all against all , the
majority of people work together and cooperate.

No one is suggesting leaving everything until after the
revolution but we all state loudly and unequivocally that we are not in the
business of sketching out specific blueprints of how future societies will
look. We cannot know and we have no right to make an attempt to dictate. At
very most we could lay out possibilities.

"This is because what we think now will influence the
future just as real experience will influence and change how we think.
Moreover, given the ways in which our own unfree society has shaped our ways of
thinking, it is probably impossible for us to imagine what new forms will arise
once humanity's ingenuity and creativity is unleashed by the removal of its
present authoritarian fetters. Thus any attempts to paint a detailed picture of
the future will be doomed to failure -Anarchist FAQ

" Can we then fill in all the details, and construct a
social, economic, and political system, with no monetary system and some sort
of grass roots or direct democracy which maintains the food supply, medical
care and quality housing, and quality education for everybody, and the freedom
to express novel and creative ideas?"

While I believe the answer to be yes, my friend appears to
believe the answer is no.

Furthermore the Spanish revolution of 1936 and the
on-going Zapatista experiment in Chiapas
suggests this is possible though not without difficulties (of course- we are
not utopians!)

"Nevertheless, anarchists have been willing to specify
some broad principles indicating the general framework within which they expect
the institutions of the new society to grow. It is important to emphasise that
these principles are not the arbitrary creations of intellectuals in ivory
towers. Rather, they are based on the actual political, social and economic
structures that have arisen spontaneously whenever working class people have
attempted to throw off its chains during eras of heightened revolutionary
activity, such as the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish
Revolution, and the Hungarian uprising of 1956, to name just a few. Thus, for
example, it is clear that self-managed, democratic workers' councils are basic
libertarian-socialist forms, since they have appeared during all revolutionary
periods -- a fact that is not surprising considering that they are rooted in
traditions of communal labour, shared resources, and participatory decision
making that stretch back tens of thousands of years, from the clans and tribes
of prehistoric times through the "barbarian" agrarian village of the
post-Roman world to the free medieval city, as Kropotkin documents in his
classic study Mutual Aid. Ultimately, such organisations are the only
alternatives to government. Unless we make our own decisions ourselves, someone
else will. - Anarchist FAQ.

"I believe that we need to perform a feasibility study
to see if there is some sort of potential world system which would be likely to
accommodate all these requirements."

And if the feasibility study suggested against revolution?
Would we condemn the world's oppressed to remain so?

Revolutions cannot be calculated in such ways. We can of course judge possible models and
weight up pros and cons.

The Spanish Revolution of 1936 is instructive in showing to
a good extent that the syndicalistaspect of an anarchist revolution is possible. Other experiments in direct
democracy past and present( Chiapas, Occupy, Argentinian Worker occupied
factories, Hungary 1956) show that form
of decision making works.

It is communism which is the great unknown but we have some
scattered ideas to build on.

Anarchists and revolutionaries have been discussing
post-revolutionary societies and what they might look like for 200 years or
more. We have a number of different ideas e.g. Par-econ, mutualism,
collectivism, communism etc.

"Maybe the replacement of our world-wide culture of group and
institutional bullying and aggression by a non-corrupt culture, which is
adamant about nurturing others, developing their talents, and accommodating
their weaknesses, would itself lead to a natural evolution to a new world order
without the need for possibly violent revolution, If necessary, the confirmed
psychopaths and paedophiles could be confined to their own rocky islands, and
left to screw each other, Such a change in mind-set would however require a
re-education of all members of our Society from pre-school to the grave. All of
our institutions would need to reformulated, and our oligarths would need to be
persuaded to agree. In such a Society, nationalistic, ethnic, and religious
rivalries would be replaced by a fusion of all that is best in our historical
cultures. "

This statement is so vague as to sound quite nice and
comforting though I worry about the authoritarianism hidden in it.

This means of getting to a better society suggests an
individualistic liberal gradualist viewpoint. As if individually teaching
people to be moral would actually on its own affect a major change in social
structures. The problem is that mindsets can only change so far within the
limits and restrictions of material circumstances.

It is practically irrelevant what you think if a small
majority hold the majority of the worlds wealth and make decisions for large
numbers of people on the planet. Without
freedom and equality, its irrelevant what your mindset is because you will be
prevent from carrying it out by the police and military and by government
propaganda and the ruling ideologies.

5 comments:

Thank you for these very constructive comments, Scott, The important thing is to engage in a discussion, sooner rather than later. One of the themes in my article is that I have an open mind regarding the social and political structure of our new world. I of course hope that we can achieve this peacefully. I hope that readers will try to read my entire article since it extrapolates my personal experiences with bullies and psychopaths into suggestions for a new world order

So it's either doom or doom, Scott, Either doom with the current Capitalist system, or doom following a largely unplanned revolution. Is their a middle way? Maybe a serious curtailment of humankind is at hand

In the meantime, various enclaves of fascist Capitalist bastards will be out to destroy you and anything you manage to achieve, Like they did, very sadly, in Barcelona, following the Spanish revolution of 1936, when a really promising grass roots democracy came into being,